Why I Am a Bad Turkey Hunter

A single hen feet from my blind.

It is inevitable, some of us are better at hunting than others. Be it experience, time in the field, gear, or shear dumb luck - someone is always better. It's a fact of life and hunting, someone is always going to be better than you and someone is always going to be worse than you, but when you're hunting does it really matter? To me, no, as long as I am outdoors I don't care, it's better than work any day. With this being said, this past Saturday was the last day of West Virginia's Spring Gobbler season, this is the third season I have attempted to take a gobbler and the third season I have came back empty handed. Slightly annoying, but nothing I can't deal with. Every time I come off the mountain I swing by my grandparents to let them know what I saw and that I made it out safely. During one of these talks with my grandpa, I told him, "I think I'm more of a deer hunter than a turkey hunter." Now this isn't strange to have a favorite species to hunt nor do I dislike turkey hunting, I just am wired for deer hunting. He proceeded to laugh and agreed as over the past few years, I have had more than my fair amount of success from my first bow kill, to filling the freezer during my few months on this blog, or even just taking the lone buck I saw on opening day this past rifle season to name a few. As with anything he told me it'll just take time and the conversation trailed in another direction.

This conversation made me think a little bit and then when talking with my good buddy, Will of TheWillToHunt.com, it hit me why I am a bad turkey hunter. We were talking about having a slow starts to our respective spring gobbler seasons and we both came to the conclusion that we're both mentally wired for deer, not turkeys. I greatly enjoy turkey hunting as I had said before, but even when I had three hens in front of me this season, albeit amazing to watch, I didn't get that feeling. That feeling, is that feeling of your heart starting to race and beat so hard that you can feel it in the back of your throat and start wonder if the deer can hear your heart is about to beat out of your chest, yeah, that feeling. I know I am talking about hens, but still I get that feeling anytime I see a deer on stand, no matter the season.  It just wasn't there for the turkeys. I am still going to turkey hunt in the future and know I'll be able to harvest a gobbler, but there a few reasons I know I'm a bad turkey hunter. A prime example of this happened two Saturdays ago, after heading to Mud Splash to see if I could catch a gobbler or two coming off the roost I hightailed it back to my blind to try and catch a few hens that had been coming in regularly. This isn't that bad, but as I tried to make it back to my blind, I found myself getting distracted as I was scouting for new deer sign more than getting back to the blind. If that wasn't bad enough, once I got there I checked my trail cam, as I normally do, I found that great looking buck from last week's TCT. Now to say I was mildly distracted by that would be an understatement. I spent the majority of the time in that blind looking at those pictures of trying to see where the deer were coming from and do some basic scouting of the area from the blind to see if their patterns have changed since last season.

If you haven't guess from this post, I love to deer hunt, bow especially! I still find enjoyment in turkey hunting, but I seem to get distracted by scouting for deer season. Don't take this as I am complaining, but more so as admitting my problem. The first step is admitting I have a problem, right? Ha, I guess that only matters if I want to get help for it though. Does anyone else have this kind of problem or am I alone?